Rick Warren - How God Uses Your Goals to Shape Your Character

Why is it important for you to set a goal?

Because it's a spiritual responsibility. You're gonna go through life

either by design or by default. You're either gonna set

goals and you're gonna decide what's important for your life

or other people are gonna decide it for you. If

you don't have goals for your life, you are abdicating

control of your life to somebody else and other things.

If you don't have goals for your life, you're not living,

you're just reacting. You're just existing. If you don't have

clear goals for your life, you're just coasting through life.

You are drifting through life. And whenever you're coasting, you're

always going downhill. If you don't have goals for your life,

you have already decided to let other people run your life.

Because you don't know what's important, so you're gonna let

them decide. And you react to circumstances and you go

through your whole life wasting your life because you haven't

clarified what's important. What I want to do today is

explain to you why you must set goals for your life.

And God says it. It's very clear in the Word

of God. Why you must do it and the changes

it will make in your life and the power that

it will do. So this is all about the future.

Making the best of the rest of your life. So

I'm very excited about it. Now, I want to begin

by giving you the six reasons why you need to

learn how to set goals in your life. Number one,

the Bible says that goal setting is a spiritual responsibility.

Did you know that God sets goals? God has goals

for the universe, God has goals for planet Earth, God

has goals for history, God has goals for eternity, and

God certainly has goals for your life. The Bible tells

us that Jesus set goals In fact, he often announced

publicly what his next goal was. I'm gonna do this now.

I'm gonna do this now. And I'm gonna do this now.

He publicly would announce in advance what his goal was

for the next phase of his ministry. Every person who

walked with God in the Bible, you can find examples

of being goal-directed. But let me just give you one example.

The Apostle Paul. Philippians chapter three, it says this. I know...

that I'm not yet what God wants me to be.

Hang on. Anybody agree with that? I know that I'm

not yet what God wants me to be. I haven't

reached that goal, but I keep moving toward it to

make it mine because Christ made me and saved me

for this. Now, I know that I haven't reached my goal,

but there is one thing I always do. forgetting the

past and straining toward what is ahead, I keep my

eyes focused on the goal so that I may one

day win the prize that God has called me to

receive through Christ in the life above. Now all of

you who are spiritually mature should think this same way too.

Paul was goal-oriented. He says, I haven't reached that goal.

I haven't yet reached my goal. And my eyes are

focused on the goal. This is a very important spiritual discipline.

The Bible says to be spiritually mature. He says all

of you who are spiritually mature should think the same way.

I set my goal. I strive toward my goal. I

move toward my goal. I keep my eyes focused on

the goal. That's what Paul said. Probably the greatest Christian

who ever lived next to Jesus himself. Number two. Goals

are statements of faith. Goals are statements of faith. A

lot of people think, well, goal, isn't that like a

business thing? Isn't that like a secular thing? Isn't that

like something athletes do? No, no, no, no. This is

a spiritual habit that you need to develop. And goals

are statements of faith. In other words, if you're a

believer in Jesus Christ, when you set a goal, what

you're saying is, I believe, that's faith, I believe that

God wants me to accomplish such and such by such

and such a time. That's a statement of faith. A

goal is a statement of faith. This is what I

believe God is going to do in my life. Goals

aren't just a statement of faith. They stretch your faith.

And the bigger your goal, the more your faith will

be stretched, and that pleases God. The Bible says without faith,

it is impossible to please God. So if you don't

have any goal, you don't need any faith. And if

you don't need any faith, the Bible says it's impossible

to please God. In fact, in Romans 14, it says,

whatsoever is not of faith is sin. So if I'm

going through life without having to need any faith, if

I don't have any goals, I don't need to take

any risks. And if I don't take any risks, I

don't need any faith. And if I don't have any faith,

I am being unfaithful. You see how important it is

for you to have a goal in every area of

your life? Now, here's a goal-stretching verse. Ephesians chapter three,

verse 20. God can do anything. Far more than you

could ever imagine. I don't know, I can imagine some

big things. Far more than you could ever imagine or

guess or dare to request in your wildest dreams. I

don't know about you, but I can imagine some pretty

big things. I'm a pretty big dreamer. Nobody has ever

accused me of being a small thinker. I've always had

big dreams. And yet God says, Rick, you think of

the greatest thing, of the greatest dream I could do

in your life. And guess what? I can top that.

I can beat that. I can do anything far more

than you would ever imagine or guess or dare to

request in your wildest dream. You let the size of

God determine the size of my goals. Big God, big goal.

Tiny God, tiny goal. No God, no goal. Let the

size of God determine the size of your goal. I

guess what I want to say to you as your pastor,

as somebody who loves you, and I want the best

for your life, and I want you to succeed in life,

I dare you to dream great dreams. I dare you.

Stop your puny little thinking. Stop being a little bitty box. Well,

I'm too young or I'm too old or I'm not

pretty enough or I'm not handsome enough or I'm a

woman or I'm a guy or whatever. Stop all your

arguments and start dreaming what God could do in your

life if you would just trust him. To me, hell

would be if God were to show me all I

could have accomplished in my life if I just believed

him a little bit more. That would be hell. We

limit God by our unbelief. Now there are two common

mistakes we make in goal setting. We set them too

low and we try to accomplish them too quickly. I

challenge you to dream big dreams for God and I

challenge you to think bigger than you ever thought before

so that you have to trust God. See, I live

my life in such a way that I'm bound to

fail unless God bails me out. I can't tell you

how many times I've painted myself into a corner. Whenever

I go, who does he think he is? I mean,

look at what he's trying to do. Like one time

we said, hey, let's be the first church in 2,000

years to go to every nation. Nobody had ever done that.

We did it. Why? Because we set a goal and

God helped us. And I have spent my life dreaming

great dreams. And it's amazing what God can do in

your life if you will do that. And here's the

cool thing. Dreaming doesn't cost anything. Doesn't cost you any money.

Doesn't cost you a penny. You can dream great dreams.

What do I dream about in my relationships? What do

I dream about in my career? What do I dream

about in my finances? What do I dream could happen

in my relationship with God? How would I wanna look?

How healthy would I wanna be? All these things. Dream

great dreams. You see, we overestimate what we can do

in a year, and we underestimate what you can do

in 10. So instead of thinking puny little tiny goals

and trying to accomplish them instantly, my challenge to you

is get a big goal for your life and then

spend the rest of your life going after it. I did.

When I was 25 years old and I moved here,

started this church with no member, no money, nobody, and

I set a 40-year goal for this church. When I

was 25, that seemed like an eternity. Goals are statements

of faith. Now, if you don't have a date, a

deadline on your goal, it's not a goal, it's just

a dream. A dream is good, but you need both. Now,

here's what the Bible says, Matthew 9, 29. According to

your faith, it will be done to you. According to

your faith, it will be done to you. God says,

you get to choose how much I bless your life.

how much I transform your life. Great faith will be

great transformation. Nothing happens in your life till you start dreaming.

God says you get to choose. According to your life,

your faith, it will be done. Ask the question, will

this require me to have faith? Is it such a

big dream that I'm bound to fail unless God helps me?

I'm really going out on a limb. Don't ever be

afraid to go out on the limb that's where the

fruit is fruit is not at the trunk you don't

get the fruit by playing it safe it's out on

the limb never be afraid to rock the boat if

jesus is your captain Goals are statements of faith. Number three,

goals focus my energy. Another one of the reasons why

you need to set goals in every area of your

life is they focus your energy. They keep you from

wasting time, money, reputation, energy. They keep you focused. Selection

is the name of the game. Focus is the key

to an effective life. It's not these 50 things I

dabble in. It's this one thing I do. And the

more you focus your life, the more powerful, the more

effective your life is gonna be. If you spread it

out and diffuse your life over a whole bunch of

different things, you'll make no impact at all. But if

you focus your life, it's gonna be powerful, it's gonna

be strong, and it will change the world. Light diffused

has no power at all. But when you focus light,

It has enormous power. It can actually start a fire.

If you focus light even more, it becomes a laser,

and a laser can cut through steel, and a laser

can kill a cancer. I want you to live a

laser life, a focused life. Goals focus my energy. Now,

the world is full of distractions. Everybody agree with that?

Everybody agree? There are a lot of things to distract you.

You can spend your life, you can waste your life,

or you can invest your life. And the greatest use

of life is to invest in that which is gonna

outlast it. Now you don't have time to do everything.

You figured that one out already. You don't have time

to do everything. Here's the good news. God doesn't expect

you to do everything. Not everything's worth doing. And there

are only a few things that are really worth doing.

And the key to being effective in life as a

woman of God, as a man of God, is to

do what matters most and forget everything else. Goals. focus

my life paul says this in first corinthians 9 26

i do not run without a goal i fight like

a boxer who is hitting something not just the air

he said i'm not playing around here i'm not playing

air guitar i'm not just pretending i'm boxing because when

i when i box i fight to win When I

run a race, I run to win. He said, I'm

not just messing around here with my life. It's too important.

I'm gonna do something with my life. I'm gonna win.

I want my life to bring honor and glory to God.

I don't run without a goal. Some of you are

running without a goal. As a result, you're just running

in circles. And you're caught up in the rat race.

You don't wanna run the rat race. Because even if

you win the rat race, you're still a rat. Number four,

goals keep me going. They give me hope to keep moving.

They give me hope to endure. They give me hope

to persist. You've heard me say this many times. When

you're going through hell, what do you do? You keep going.

You don't want to make a home in hell. You

don't want to stay there and camp out overnight. When

you're going through hell, you just keep on going. And

the way you do that is you have a goal beyond.

The Bible says Jesus endured the cross because he looked

forward to the goal and the glory that was set

before him. He looked beyond the pain to the payoff.

You need to do this too. The Bible says that

God wants to make you have hope. You see, if

you don't have hope, a goal in your life, any

goals in your life, you don't really have any reason

to get out of bed in the morning. Except maybe

you gotta eat. But really, why even get out of bed?

Why even live if you don't have any goal for

your life? Job says this in Job chapter six verse 11.

I do not have the strength to endure. You ever

felt like that? I don't know if I'm gonna make it.

I don't have the strength to endure, why? I do

not have a goal that encourages me to carry on.

You gotta have a goal to keep you going. You see,

when you have a long-term goal, long-term goals keep you

from being discouraged with short-term setbacks. Everybody has setbacks. Everybody

blows it. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has failure. In fact,

failure is the only way you succeed. You cannot succeed

in life without failing. Why? That's how you learn what

works and what doesn't work. So never call it a failure.

Call it an education. Some of us are highly educated.

We're good at failing. Now, if there's any piece of

advice as your friend, I could say this to you.

It's this. Learn to fail fast. Okay? Because you're going

to fail. You're going to fail. So everybody fails. I

fail all the time. You know what? The key to

Saddleback's growth and our strength and our Our success is

we fail fast. And then we learn from it. A

goal doesn't have to be big to motivate you. For instance,

if you had to go to the hospital and have

surgery for some reason, your first goal would simply be

after surgery, can I sit up in bed? Not a

very big goal, but an important one. And the second

goal would, can I hang my feet over the side

of the bed and sit up? And then the next

goal would, can I get enough strength to stand up

after surgery? And then a very important goal, can I

have enough strength to go to the bathroom by myself?

Big goal. Then the next is, do I have enough

strength to walk around this wing of the hospital? All

of those are very small goals, but they're all important

goals because to get from here to success isn't one

big leap. It's many small steps. Many small steps. So

a goal doesn't have to be big for it to

be important. It's getting you on the way. Like my

goal today is to get out of bed and to

eat healthy, have a healthy breakfast. Fine, that's a good goal.

Goal setting is a spiritual responsibility. It's a statement of faith.

It focuses my energy. It keeps me going. Number five,

the Bible says goals build my character. Goals build my character.

Drifting doesn't build your character, but goals build your character.

And if you set a goal and you get a vision,

without a vision, the Bible says the people perish. If

you get a vision, you get a goal, then God says,

I can work in you. Now, listen very carefully to

what I'm about to say. The greatest benefit to your

life over the goals you're gonna set, the biggest benefit

to your life is not gonna be the accomplishments and

achievements you acquire because of those goals, but what happens

inside you while you're moving toward the goal. See, God

is more interested in your character than he is in

your accomplishments. You're not taking your success to heaven. You're

not taking your career to heaven, but you are taking

your character So God is more interested in who you

are and what you become than he is in what

you do and accomplish and what you succeed at. God's

interested in you. So here's the idea. While I'm working

on the goal, God is working on me. Does that

make sense? And that's what God wants to do in

your life. Goals help build your character. And that's what's

gonna last for eternity. That's why Paul says in Philippians

chapter three, verse 12, I keep striving toward the goal.

That means it takes energy. It takes effort. It takes intention.

It takes purpose in order to reach your goal. And

God says that while you're doing that, while you're working

on the goal, God is building character in you. You

will never become the man God intends you to be

unless you intend to become that man. You will never

be the woman God intends for you to be unless

you intend to be that person. 10 years from today,

some of you, you're not gonna be in church. You're

gonna be a long way away from God. You're gonna

go through a failed marriage. You're gonna have all kinds

of problems in your life. Why? Because you never intended

to be a man of God. You never intended to

be a woman of God. It was just kind of

a casual Christianity. Yeah, maybe this, yeah, maybe that. And

you never intended. You'll never become what God intends without

you being intentional. Goals build my character. Then number six,

good goals will be rewarded. Good goals will be rewarded.

And if you have good goals, then there's gonna be

two reasons that you're rewarded. You're gonna be rewarded on

earth by people and you're gonna be rewarded by God

in heaven. When you have a good goal, it brings respect.

When you have a good goal, it brings honor. When

you give your life to a good goal, it builds

a legacy on earth. The Bible says in Proverbs 11, 27,

let's read this verse aloud together, okay? Read it with me.

If your goals are good, you will be respected. You

wanna be respected? then you need to set some goals

that are good. One of the greatest honors I've ever

been given in my entire life was the honor of

preaching in Martin Luther King's home church on the 40th

anniversary of his death. And so on the 40th anniversary

of Martin Luther King's death, on that day, they invited

me to speak At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, I

was the first white preacher to preach in that church.

And that was an honor to me. Why? Because I

respect people who use their lives to make a difference.

God wants to teach you how to love. If your

goals are good, you'll be respected. But the real reward

in setting good goals is going to come in eternity.

Look at this next verse, 1 Corinthians 9.25. All athletes

practice strict self-control. They eat right, they sleep right, and

they work out, they exercise. They do it to win

a prize that will fade away. Nobody's gonna remember yesterday's

game in two weeks, much less two years. They do

it to win a prize that will fade away, but

we do it for an eternal prize. So I run,

Paul says, straight to the goal with purpose. in every step.

He was purpose driven goal setter. You need to be

that too. Now, not every goal that you can set

is a good goal. Not every goal is a goal

that God's gonna bless. So you wanna set the kind

of goal that God is gonna bless, God's gonna give

you the power to do. So how do I know

the kind of goal that God will bless? Let me

just close by giving you three questions. When you get

ready to set a goal, you wanna ask these three questions.

Number one, the first question is, will this goal honor God?

That's the first question you ask. Will this goal honor God?

And what kind of goal will honor God? What kind

of goal brings glory to God? Any goal that causes

you to trust him more, to depend on him more,

to love him more, to love other people more, to

serve God and serve others, to be more unselfish. Those

are gonna be good goals. The Bible says in 1

Corinthians 6, 20, God paid a great price for you.

Look at the cross. So use your body to honor God.

Are you using your body to honor God? Corinthians 10, 31.

When you eat or drink or do anything, Always do

it to honor God. Everything can be done to honor God.

You can take out the garbage to honor God. You

can wash dishes to honor God. You can clean out

your car to honor God or your closet. You can

study it for a test to honor God. How? By

doing it with the right motive out of gratitude and

for the right motivation, I want my life to bring

honor to God so I'm gonna be the best I

can be for God's sake. Will this goal honor God? Now,

the Bible says this. We make it our goal to

please him, 2 Corinthians 5.9. Second question. Will this goal

or is this goal motivated by love? That's the second

thing you want to ask when you set a goal

for your finances, for your health, for your relationships. Will

this goal, is this goal motivated by love? God is

not gonna bless a goal motivated by greed. I didn't

wanna make a whole lot of money. God is not

gonna bless a goal motivated by competition. I wanna be

better than that company. God is not gonna bless a

goal motivated by envy. God is not gonna bless a

goal motivated by greed or grief or guilt or grudges.

He's not gonna honor a goal that's built on worry

or fear or anxiety. God is not going to bless

a goal that's motivated by materialism or by ego or

by pride. But when you set a goal out of love, God,

I want to do this because I love you and

I want to love other people. God's going to honor

that because it's all about love. Life is all about

learning how to love. 1 Corinthians 16, 14. Everything you

do must be done with love. Everything. 1 Corinthians 14, 1.

Love must be your highest goal. That should be the

number one goal in your life. I wanna learn to

really love. And I wanna learn to love unlovely people.

And I wanna learn to love the loveless and the unloved.

And I wanna learn to love people who are hard

to love. That's being like God. Why is it important

for you to have goals that are based on love?

Because if you set loveless goals, you're gonna treat people

as projects. You're going to run all over them to

get to your goal. You're going to run over your marriage.

You're going to run over your friends. You're going to

run over other people climbing up the ladder of success.

God says, no, no, you got it all wrong. It's

not about accomplishments. It's about relationships. It's about learning how

to love. Third thing, third question. Will this goal require

depending on God? Will this goal require depending on God?

Remember I said earlier, Hebrews 11, six, without faith, it's

impossible to please God. If you don't have a goal

that requires faith, then it's not a pleasing to God goal.

Romans 14, 23, everything that doesn't come from faith is sin.

If you have a goal that's so small, it doesn't

require any faith to do it, it's a sin. Whatever

is not a faith, the Bible says, is sin. Now

look at this verse, Proverbs 16, verse nine. Why don't

we read this one aloud too? You do it with me,

Proverbs 16, nine. We plan the way we want to live,

but only God makes us able to live it. I

love that in the message paraphrase. We get to plan

the way we want to live, but it says only

God gives us the power, gives us the energy, gives

us the ability to actually do it, to make the transformation. Why?

Because God provides the three things you must have to

reach your goal. Number one, I need God's spirit to

empower me. This is not something based on willpower. It's

based on God power. It's not based on trying. It's

based on trusting. I need God's spirit to empower me.

Zechariah 4, 6 says, you will succeed. You will not succeed,

it says. You will not succeed by your own strength

or your own power. but by my spirit, says the Lord.

I need God's spirit to empower me to make changes

I can't make on my own. Number two, I need

God's word to guide me. I need God's spirit to

empower me. I need God's word to guide me. The

Bible is the owner's manual for life. The more you

get this book into your mind, your heart, and your life,

the more you read it, study it, memorize it, meditate

on it, the more successful, the more fulfilled, the more

strong you're going to be in life. When Joshua was

given the great dream of taking over the promised land,

and it was a goal that was going to take

him the rest of his life, God had these words

to say to Joshua. Chapter 1, verse 8. Keep this book,

Joshua 1:8

that's the Bible, keep this book of the law on

your lips. In other words, talk about it all the time.

Recite it by day and night. That means memorize it

so you can quote it. Recite it by day and

night that you may carefully follow all that is written

in it. That's the premise. Now here's the promise. Then

you will successfully attain your goal. That is one of

the greatest promises of success in the Bible. That promise

comes from God. You will successfully attain your goal. How?

If you become a man of the word, you become

a woman of the word. All you need to know

about life is in this book right here. I need

God's spirit to empower me and I need God's word

to guide me. And finally, the third thing I need

is I need God's people to support me. You will

not be able to reach your goals on your own.

I haven't been able to reach my goals on my own.

You need other people in your life. A crowd can't

support you, but a small group can. Three, four, five,

six other people. They can know when you're sick. They

can know when you're having a tough time, when you've

had a bad day. A crowd can't support you, but

a community, a small group can. Ecclesiastes 4.12 says this.

By yourself, you're unprotected. But with a friend, you confess.

the worst and a group of three a group of

three is even better because a rope braided with three

strands is not easily snapped what do you call three

people meeting together a small group that's what it is

Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my

name I'll be in the midst of them.